McConnell: Administration playing games with Obamacare

7/14/13 11:34 AM EDT

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell charged on Sunday that President Barack Obama is "selectively delaying" parts of the federal health care law "as if it's all just kind of a smorgasbord of options for him to figure out which ones to execute and which part of the law not to execute."

"For example, they decided to say 'never mind' on the employer mandate. What about the individual mandate? Does the president get to decide which parts of the law to comply with and which parts not," the Republican senator from Kentucky said on NBC's "Meet the Press. "It's a massive, complicated unpopular bill. Obviously, if we had the votes we would repeal it."

The administration announced earlier this month that it would postpone the law's insurance mandate for employers by one year. But the decision does not affect the individual mandate.

Republicans, however, have picked up on the delay, charging the health care law is not ready for primetime.

The issue of Obamacare, McConnell said, is likely to be the "premier issue in the 2014 election."

"The American people dislike it even more now than they did when it was passed," he said.